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Asteroids/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby An animation shows the screen of a computer game. Little spaceships are seen moving around and blasting large floating rocks. When a ray from the spaceship hits a rock, it splits into smaller rocks. The animation switches to show that it is Tim sitting in front of a computer screen, who is playing the game. TIM: Yes! The view of the computer screen resumes. Rocks continue to move around. Suddenly, a high-pitched whirring can be heard and the image of a robot head floats into the center of the screen. Two ray beams flash out of the robot head’s eyes and hit the rocket. The rocket explodes. The animation returns to the view of Tim and a high-pitched sound can be heard indicating game shut-down. The view pans to the right and we can see Moby standing next to the game console with a wire running out of his ear to the back of the computer monitor. TIM: Hey! Moby holds up an envelope to Tim. MOBY: Beep. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim & Moby, what exactly is an asteroid? From, Martin. Asteroids are basically big rocks that orbit the sun. An animation shows the sun at the bottom of the screen. Orbiting it can be seen drawings of the eight planets. Between Mars and Jupiter, there is a ring of rocks orbiting the sun. White dots, stars, are scattered across the screen. TIM: Most asteroids live in a ring between Mars and Jupiter called the Main Asteroid Belt. The animation zooms in on the rocks. A caption appears that reads: "Main Asteroid Belt". TIM: They're irregular in shape, and they can range in size from less than a kilometer in diameter to several hundred kilometers wide! The animation zooms in further showing several rocks floating near each other. A huge rock comes into view and collides with one of the small rocks causing an explosion to occur. TIM: Ceres is the largest asteroid we know of, with a diameter of over 900 kilometers! A close-up of Ceres is shown. A line representing its diameter is labeled "933 k m". The view switches back to Tim and Moby next to the computer. Moby has three blue lights on his chest. Tim is wearing a white T-shirt with a drawing of an asteroid in the center. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yeah, Ceres is also known as a dwarf planet. Nowadays, space objects can fall into more than just one category . . . asteroid, dwarf planet, minor planet, small solar system body — the list goes on. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, the International Astronomical Union oversees the naming of asteroids. A drawing shows a scientist looking at a representation of the solar system. Text reads: International Astronomical Union (UpperWord I A U) TIM: So far, more than 360,000 have been identified and more than 13,000 have been named. Astronomers think there are between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids in the solar system. Besides revolving around the sun, asteroids share a few other qualities with planets. The animation switches back to the view of the solar system with the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroids are revolving around the sun. TIM: They rotate around a central axis, some as quickly as every few hours, and some as slowly as once every 30 days. A close-up of a large asteroid in a star field is shown. The rock is rotating about an imaginary axis. TIM: Like planets, some asteroids have moons — smaller asteroids revolving around them! A smaller rock comes into view. It is revolving around the large rock. MOBY: Beep? A close-up of Moby's head is shown. TIM: Asteroids are made mostly of silicon-based rock, with some metals like nickel and iron, and carbon. The screen fills with four pictures of rocks. The top left picture is labeled "Upper S I". The top right picture is labeled "Upper N I". The bottom left picture is labeled "Upper F e". The bottom right picture is labeled "Upper C". TIM: Also like planets, their orbits keep them about the same distance from the sun at all times. An animation shows asteroids revolving around the sun. Three double-headed arrows mark the distance from the sun to the ring of asteroids in three different places. The arrows all have the same length. TIM: Astronomers think that most asteroids formed billions of years ago from the same cosmic dust that formed the sun and the planets of our solar system. A side view of the asteroids revolving around the sun is shown. A dust cloud surrounds the plane that they are in. TIM: Along with comets, they’re sort of like the building blocks of the solar system. That's why we study them. The view zooms in and we see individual small rocks colliding and sticking to each other forming a larger rock. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yeah, not all of them stay within the Main Asteroid Belt. When you see a shooting star, or meteor, meteor chances are it’s a tiny asteroid, or a fragment from a big asteroid or comet. A white slash appears going from the upper left to the middle right can be seen overhead. It then disappears. A caption reads: "meteor". A second slash moves quickly across the screen. TIM: The friction from the earth’s atmosphere causes them to burn up as they enter. An animation shows a huge rock falling toward the earth. It starts to glow and then bursts into flames. TIM: They light up the way they do because they’re actually on fire! Most meteors are so tiny they burn up completely before hitting the ground. The animation switches back to show Tim and Moby in front of the fence. Suddenly a small meteor streaks in and hits Moby in the head. There is a "clank" and then a cloud of smoke. Moby frowns. TIM: But some meteors are too big to burn all the way up. Any part of a meteor that makes it to the earth's surface without burning up is called a meteorite. The view focuses on Moby’s feet where the remainder of the meteor that just hit him has fallen. It is sizzling, glowing orange, and smoking. A caption reads: "meteorite". TIM: That's how scientists know so much about the composition of asteroids — from studying meteorites. Another shooting star can be seen in the sky above Tim and Moby. Moby holds up his arms to protect himself. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yes, very large asteroids do sometimes hit the earth. Some scientists think that dinosaurs were wiped out when a huge asteroid hit the planet about 65 million years ago. An animation shows several dinosaurs grazing. A large asteroid falls down from the sky and crashes behind some mountains. Smoke appears and the screen goes dark. TIM: But most asteroids stay inside the main belt. An animation shows a number of large rocks floating in space. The sun can be seen in the distance. TIM: Astronomers think that collisions with asteroids big enough to do worldwide damage happen only once every few hundred thousand years. Moby is frowning. MOBY: Beep? TIM: What? That's a long time! What are the chances of — Another meteor swoops down from the sky, bangs into Moby’s head, and falls to the ground. There is a big cloud of smoke. TIM: Okay, let's go inside. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Science Transcripts